Granada
Last Friday
How do I explain my past weekend in Granada.. hmm lets just say it didn´t start out well. The bus ride was only 3 hours but honestly it was excruciating. After an hour and a half of travel 10 individuals on the bus discovered they had to stop for a bathroom break, BAD. However, no matter how much they pleaded to our director to have the driver stop the bus they just kept going. It was an uprising on the bus for about 20 minutes. It only ended when the bus finally stopped at the prearranged stop and those 10 students went racing for the bathroom.
Later, when we arrived at Granada Jessop, another student, and I were experiencing motion sickness. That was a surprise as we had been on the bus to Portugal and Morocco but something about this trip was just horrible. So needless to say it did not start out well.
We arove at the hotel around 2 and the rooms (as usual) weren´t ready. So we put our bags in the back conference room and I set out, with my bocadillo in hand, (bocadillo= sandwich) with Robert, Andrea, and Sarah to explore the town of Granada. Now we were on a main search to find Andrea a place to eat but we also found that the town is pretty small but built about the same as Lisbon, Portugal with streets with huge name brand stores and small mom and pop restaurants and tapas bars interspersed in the smaller side streets.
After Andrea ate some paella and we had lively conversations about random things we made a trip to Haagen Daz for some ice cream. I was persuaded into fossil fuel and it was really good. Then I returned to the room for nap time, Ashton had beat me to it.
Later that evening I got a call from Madia and Robert and through a couple mixups Robert and I ended up eating at a restaurant by ourselves (a whole courtesy problem) and it was fun. Our dinner took a little long but it was worth it. We had the plate called Country and it was good! (No it wasn´t american I haven´t fallen on that escape yet.)
We ended up running to the meeting place for our group trip to flamenco dancing (and it was chilly, and of course neither of us had jackets) when we caught up with the group Madia wrapped her scarf around me to help with warmth poor Robert just had to freeze because he let me have the scarf.
Let me set the scene we walked into a setting that reminded one of a home. We were taken to a back part that opened up into a room with chairs set around tables. The decoration along the walls were pots and pans, with other paraphanalia resembling a house. At the back of the room there was an arch over a stage that had two little windows and a curtain covering a larger window in the middle. Now the view from all of these windows was rock, this building was carved into the mountain so in other words we were in a nice cave. The perfect setting for flamenco.
I should really explain the history of Spain to explain why I say this is the perfect setting. In 1492 the spanish monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabel, started the inquisition throughout Spain. The spanish inqusition was horrible and millions of people were slain for their beliefs. Those that did not convert to cristianity (or pretend to convert) in Granada went into hidding in the caves of Granada. These people included the jews, muslims (moors), and the people who are always running from the law; the gypsies and criminals. These various groups of people are believed to have played a part in the creation of flamenco, and the place that flamenco was first performed- in caves, the homes of these people in hiding.
Flamenco is performed with a guitar, a singer, clapping, and sometimes (always for tourists) a dancer. The idea behind flamenco is to portray the struggles of the person, good flamenco is rough, strong, and different every time because the struggles change for every person.
Enough flamenco lessons, if you have questions let me know. So we watched two flamenco groups in Granada. These groups included three dancers, one person to clap, one singer, and one guitar player. The women wore flamenco dresses (for us, the tourists) and the men wore black pants and brightly colored collared shirts. It was really neat to watch and experience as they were pretty good, but I am not a flamenco expert.
When that ended Sara, Robert, Jessica, Jessica´s dad, Andrea, Brian, and Jimmy went to a hooka bar. That was fun because the owner of the bar was very energetic, there were arabic music videos on the tvs around the bar and of course new food to try. I shared a pita filaffle with Andrea and it was really good. We also as a group got some pakistan and Andaluce tea and with sugar they were really good. It was a lot of fun.
While at the bar we met some american students that are studying in Granada and they told us about some discotecas and bars to go to. But this is where Granada gets interesting (I think they do this in Barcelona too) when you walk near the bars and clubs there are students standing on the streets with little papers for bars and discotecas around the city. We just would walk to one student and follow that person to a bar, if it was too packed, the music was not to our liking, or just didn´t like it we would walk back out into the streets meet another person and go to another bar. We ended up dancing at three bars and one discoteca. The last discoteca was pretty crowded when we showed up but it died down because the big discoteca ¨Granada 10¨ opened (Granada 10 had an entrance fee of 8, and a line of guys standing in a line outside of it waiting to go in) we didn´t feel like going to that.
THE NEXT DAY
How do I explain my past weekend in Granada.. hmm lets just say it didn´t start out well. The bus ride was only 3 hours but honestly it was excruciating. After an hour and a half of travel 10 individuals on the bus discovered they had to stop for a bathroom break, BAD. However, no matter how much they pleaded to our director to have the driver stop the bus they just kept going. It was an uprising on the bus for about 20 minutes. It only ended when the bus finally stopped at the prearranged stop and those 10 students went racing for the bathroom.
Later, when we arrived at Granada Jessop, another student, and I were experiencing motion sickness. That was a surprise as we had been on the bus to Portugal and Morocco but something about this trip was just horrible. So needless to say it did not start out well.
We arove at the hotel around 2 and the rooms (as usual) weren´t ready. So we put our bags in the back conference room and I set out, with my bocadillo in hand, (bocadillo= sandwich) with Robert, Andrea, and Sarah to explore the town of Granada. Now we were on a main search to find Andrea a place to eat but we also found that the town is pretty small but built about the same as Lisbon, Portugal with streets with huge name brand stores and small mom and pop restaurants and tapas bars interspersed in the smaller side streets.
After Andrea ate some paella and we had lively conversations about random things we made a trip to Haagen Daz for some ice cream. I was persuaded into fossil fuel and it was really good. Then I returned to the room for nap time, Ashton had beat me to it.
Later that evening I got a call from Madia and Robert and through a couple mixups Robert and I ended up eating at a restaurant by ourselves (a whole courtesy problem) and it was fun. Our dinner took a little long but it was worth it. We had the plate called Country and it was good! (No it wasn´t american I haven´t fallen on that escape yet.)
We ended up running to the meeting place for our group trip to flamenco dancing (and it was chilly, and of course neither of us had jackets) when we caught up with the group Madia wrapped her scarf around me to help with warmth poor Robert just had to freeze because he let me have the scarf.
Let me set the scene we walked into a setting that reminded one of a home. We were taken to a back part that opened up into a room with chairs set around tables. The decoration along the walls were pots and pans, with other paraphanalia resembling a house. At the back of the room there was an arch over a stage that had two little windows and a curtain covering a larger window in the middle. Now the view from all of these windows was rock, this building was carved into the mountain so in other words we were in a nice cave. The perfect setting for flamenco.
I should really explain the history of Spain to explain why I say this is the perfect setting. In 1492 the spanish monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabel, started the inquisition throughout Spain. The spanish inqusition was horrible and millions of people were slain for their beliefs. Those that did not convert to cristianity (or pretend to convert) in Granada went into hidding in the caves of Granada. These people included the jews, muslims (moors), and the people who are always running from the law; the gypsies and criminals. These various groups of people are believed to have played a part in the creation of flamenco, and the place that flamenco was first performed- in caves, the homes of these people in hiding.
Flamenco is performed with a guitar, a singer, clapping, and sometimes (always for tourists) a dancer. The idea behind flamenco is to portray the struggles of the person, good flamenco is rough, strong, and different every time because the struggles change for every person.
Enough flamenco lessons, if you have questions let me know. So we watched two flamenco groups in Granada. These groups included three dancers, one person to clap, one singer, and one guitar player. The women wore flamenco dresses (for us, the tourists) and the men wore black pants and brightly colored collared shirts. It was really neat to watch and experience as they were pretty good, but I am not a flamenco expert.
When that ended Sara, Robert, Jessica, Jessica´s dad, Andrea, Brian, and Jimmy went to a hooka bar. That was fun because the owner of the bar was very energetic, there were arabic music videos on the tvs around the bar and of course new food to try. I shared a pita filaffle with Andrea and it was really good. We also as a group got some pakistan and Andaluce tea and with sugar they were really good. It was a lot of fun.
While at the bar we met some american students that are studying in Granada and they told us about some discotecas and bars to go to. But this is where Granada gets interesting (I think they do this in Barcelona too) when you walk near the bars and clubs there are students standing on the streets with little papers for bars and discotecas around the city. We just would walk to one student and follow that person to a bar, if it was too packed, the music was not to our liking, or just didn´t like it we would walk back out into the streets meet another person and go to another bar. We ended up dancing at three bars and one discoteca. The last discoteca was pretty crowded when we showed up but it died down because the big discoteca ¨Granada 10¨ opened (Granada 10 had an entrance fee of 8, and a line of guys standing in a line outside of it waiting to go in) we didn´t feel like going to that.
THE NEXT DAY
posted by Lauren Westling @ 4:29 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home